


Stand back...

by raccoonLauncher



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Doctor Strange was more thorough, Endgame AU, Gen, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-30 23:31:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19413718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raccoonLauncher/pseuds/raccoonLauncher
Summary: ...Iron Man's got this.A much easier ending to Endgame's final battle





	Stand back...

"...Can you look a bit longer?"

Doctor Strange tilted his head. "What?"

"Longer. I mean, look at more futures. There are fourteen million versions of what my finger can do in a second, and I like options."

Tony stared down the wizard he had met only a little bit ago.

"Maybe I'll do that."

Strange nodded sheepishly and began levitating again, his head blurring as he looked through possible endings.

Finally, he stopped. "I like this one."

"That's the spirit. See where a bit of extra hard work gets you?"

* * *

The three Avengers approached the sitting Titan slowly and dramatically.

Suddenly, Iron Man stopped. "Hey, stand back."

Captain America looked at him like he had gone insane. "What?"

"I've got this."

Thor glared. Cap sighed. "You know what? Go ahead."

Tony stepped forward alone, keying in an instruction in his suit.

Thanos sat up. "You couldn't live with your own failure. Where did that bring you?"

"I'll tell you where, Barney."

A massive steel capsule hurtled out of the sky from behind the unsuspecting supervillain.

"Back to-"

It slammed into his back, bouncing over him towards Tony. It fell down in front of him.

Parts of the capsule opened, and parts of giant limbs and machinery shot out, propelled by rockets.

Iron Man leapt into the air, allowing a suit slightly larger than his opponent to form around him. It fell to the ground, making it shake.

"It brought me to the Thanos Buster."

Thanos got to his feet, held his sword in front of him, and waited.

"I kind of designed it to fight Infinity Stones, by the way."

He pointed the armor's fist at Thanos, and a concentrated burst of energy shot out.

The Titan caught it on his sword, spinning it in front of him to block the laser.

Stepping aside and allowing it to go past, he pulled his sword back and charged the suit.

A metal hand caught the sword as it swung down, but it cut into the palm abd lodged in the suit's wrist.

"A sword, huh? That's cute."

A rocket igniting on the elbow of the other arm, Iron Man punched Thanos hard enough to push him back, ripping the sword out of where it had cut.

"This sword was forged by the Eternals out of the strongest alloy ever designed. Nothing you made here can withstand it."

Nanobots quickly repaired the damage that had been done, rebuilding the hand in a matter of seconds.

"You don't need to withstand anything if you can just come back."

Thanos blinked, scowled, and charged forward. He swung his sword again, but it hit nothing but air.

The armor leapt over him to land behind him, and spun to hit him in the back of the head, sending him sprawling.

He swung his sword up and back, but the suit caught it by the handle and held firm.

The Titan gripped it with both hands, trying to force it upwards, but couldn't overpower years of development that came from a similar suit only matching the Hulk in strength.

He kicked upwards, throwing Iron Man over his head and getting up.

The hero, left holding the sword, was unprepared for Thanos to punch the suit's head. It held, but not perfectly.

He threw the sword aside, throwing a retaliatory punch, but Thanos grabbed his arm and slammed his knee into the suit's torso.

Pulling back his other fist, the conquerer tried to punch his enemy again, but the Thanos Buster's fist met his own.

It reassembled itself around his hand, trapping it, and Tony pulled him down, slamming him against the ground and dragging him in a circle around himself.

Thanos tried to stand up, but the armor used its hold on his fist to swing him up over its head, smashing him down again.

This time, when he got to his feet, the Titan grabbed the suit's other arm and began to struggle with it. However, a kick sent him onto his back when the device holding his arm suddenly let go.

A metal foot came down on his chest, and although he grabbed it, he couldn't move it.

"Got you."

There was a moment of silence.

"What did you hope to-"

"Do you understand what you did to us?"

Thanos closed his mouth.

"I did some math. A quarter of all married couples survived, a quarter of them were disintegrated, and half of them were left with one dead and the other alive.

That means that two thirds of married people who survived lost their spouse and had to live with it. I was one of the lucky third.

But let's look at other relationships. Best friends. Siblings. Parents. If two people had a kid, only one out of four times did either all or none of them die. One out of four of the remaining times, the parents lost their child, half the time, one person lost their spouse and child, and one fourth of the time, the kid became an orphan."

He lifted his foot briefly to stomp it down again.

"Don't you understand!? You thought we would be grateful!? How could we!? You took the lives of half of us, and you destroyed the lives of everyone else!"

Thanos chuckled deeply.

"I wanted mercy, but if you don't appreciate it, I won't bother trying to change your mind."

"I'll just wipe out everything and start over. No ungratefulness, no weeping, no struggling to get back what you can't have."

He pointed up, and Iron Man looked.

A massive spaceship sat in the sky, and multitudes of flying, monstrous whales floated down. Giant pods filled with alien warriors fell from the ship, opening to release their hordes.

"I am inevitable."

A blade came out from the armor's fist and pressed against his neck. "Not if you're dead."

Fury filled Thanos's face. "You wouldn't!"

"Why not? What are you appealing to, exactly? My being "better than you?" Because that's not hard. All I have to do is not kill half the universe. Whoops, I just did that! Guess I don't have to worry."

The Titan struggled internally, before bellowing his surrender. "STOP!"

The ship and whales stopped instantly, and the hordes slowed down after a few seconds.

Thanos glared at Tony with pure hatred. "What now?"

"Well, honestly, I'm not too sure."

Then a portal opened in front of him. Doctor Strange stepped out. "It looks like you won."

"Not quite yet." His suit pointed at the waiting army.

Strange moved his hand in a circle, and a giant portal opened above the ship. An unbelievable wall of water crashed down on it.

It fell down to the earth under the massive weight, and what troops weren't crushed under the ship were flattened by the water.

As the wall of water began to near Tony and Strange, the sorcerer changed his hand motions, and it was changed into a massive tornado of water. The ship and troops were swept up, and a final portal opened underneath.

Thanos's entire army was washed down the massive drain, with one exception.

Ebony Maw, pulling Cull Obsidian behind him in the air, shot at Iron Man and Strange, but his ally was knocked from behind him by a flying hammer.

The alien wizard gestured, and the suit began to lift off of Thanos, while cords of orange magic lashed his wrists to the ground.

Thor hurled Stormbreaker through the air at the sorcerer, who opened his palm to push it back.

His eyes widened as his magic had no effect or power to stop its flight.

Everyone looked away. Iron Man fell back down onto Thanos's chest.

Thor flew to fight Cull Obsidian, who went down quickly, not strong enough to put up much of a fight against Stormbreaker and Mjolnir.

Strange opened another portal, and the others from Titan came through.

When he saw Peter, Tony opened the front of the Thanos Buster, jumped out in his normal suit, and opened it to hug him in person.

Thanos tried to push the suit off of him, but was held down by Doctor Strange.

"Mister Stark! What happened?"

"We got him. We won. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. Why are you crying?"

Tony couldn't stop his grin or his tears. "I'm just glad it's okay. You're here, everyone's back. It's hard to believe."

It was hard to believe. He didn't have to lie to himself about being okay and moving on anymore. It was over. They had won.

**Author's Note:**

> I guess Hawkeye get the gauntlet out, Nebula and Gamora are with him, and they get the stones and Mjolnir back as in canon.
> 
> But really, just Hulkbuster. It would have made things so much easier. And if the full Infinity Gauntlet can't stop Stormbreaker, neither can Ebony Maw.
> 
> That's all I've got. Feel free to comment and tell me everything I did wrong!


End file.
